Body shapes

Scientists, it is reported, are developing an elixir that will help people to control their appetites. Suddenly, we will all have the chance to be thin. The aesthetic and health benefits will be untold. Can't you just see it: there go the multi-million pound slimming and fitness industries; there go the outsize outfitters; there go the fat-people jokes. We'll all fit into our seats on the plane, even in cut-price economy class.

But experience teaches us to fear unintended consequences. So we all want to be thin as wraiths? Not so fast, perhaps. It is the fashion now to be painfully thin, but how short a time has passed since Sophie Dahl heralded the new ideal? Not everyone, after all, has a frame like Paula Radcliffe's. Some people look and feel better carrying a few extra pounds, and perhaps a few more. This paper stands for diversity in everything, body-weight included.